November/December 2017 | Vol. 32 | No. 6

Featured Articles

Dr. Sam Foote didn’t plan to be a whistleblower. He didn’t even plan on being a doctor, let alone one in the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department (VA) during the height of scandal in Arizona. But the moon landing in 1969 altered the course of his future and potentially the lives of thousands of U.S. veterans.

Fraud is a non-violent offense, right? Most times. But this is the story of how fraudulent economic arson in a small suburban neighborhood in Indianapolis, Indiana, turned deadly. Community members are reassembling their lives. Here are lessons from the investigation for discovering evidence on arson-for-profit cases.

The author, a former Los Angeles Times reporter, provides a first-person account of how his newspaper broke the Wells Fargo scandal — how employees opened millions of unauthorized deposit and checking accounts, often transferring funds from consumers’ existing accounts without their knowledge or consent.

You’re in the grocery store, and you’re pleased with yourself. You’ve just chosen a beautiful bottle of extra-virgin olive oil labeled with a picture of verdant Italian olive groves. Unfortunately, the liquid in that bottle also contains soybean, corn, sunflower, cotton, hazelnut, peanut and palm oils. Olive oil fraud is rampant. Here’s how the oily criminals commit their crimes and how to prevent them.

Here are five employee faces to look for when trying to prevent procurement fraud, abuse and noncompliance. Their aberrant behavior can lead to manipulated purchasing systems plus major financial and reputational losses, potential litigation and/or contract termination.